


Okay, Istus, But Why Though?

by Outdated_Meme



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, F/F, F/M, Fishers a normal boy btw, Gen, I deadass gave majors to every character and researched what courses they'd go through, M/M, My First Fanfic, Slow Burn, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, can someone please tell me why i did that, just to let you know, pretty excited tbh, will add more tags as time goes on
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2020-12-14 17:37:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21019646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Outdated_Meme/pseuds/Outdated_Meme
Summary: Lady Istus, Goddess of fate. A deeply caring Goddess who personally selects followers to be Holy Paladins of hers and uses them as ambassadors to the mortal world. She preaches mercy to the injured regardless of circumstance, and stress that every individual has a set-path in life, and that to lose that path is to lose ones' self. Shes an incredibly kind deity. She's also kind of a prick.-The first few chapters will be decently short while I get this story rolling-





	1. That's Cool, I Guess. It's Not Like I'm Stressed Or Anything

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is probably going to give me bad second hand embarrassment, and I'm the one writing it. gl ig

The way Lady Istus showed which people are destined to be together was strange to say the least. She’d choose your soulmate’, and essentially brand you with their name. That in itself was all good and normal (albeit, a little intimidating), however it wasn’t specified which of their names it is. For instance, Barry’s long time friend, Magnus Burnsides, had the name ‘Julia’ on his left shoulder blade. When they were younger, he often talked excitedly about the prospect of meeting her. Whenever he had the chance to, the goof had his shirt off, craning his neck to inspect the orangish-yellow signature in the mirror. 

When the Magnus and Julia met, it was during both their freshman year in college, and only about four months in. Magnus dragged Barry to some party in a dorm that neither of them could actually remember the name of. Of course Barry didn’t want to go in the first place, but his friend was was absolutely intent on bringing him to at least one party, insisting that he was always stressing over grades and assignments since they first met in the third grade.

He wasn't sure how Magnus had heard about the party in the first place. Maybe Carey told him about it? Thankfully, when the two entered the dorm house, it wasn't like how movies made it out be with all the loud music and intense lights. It was loud, and some random couples were making out here and there, but, for the most part, it was relativity tame.

They'd been there for at lease a of couple hours, when Magnus had beat someone in a game of Beer Pong. Barry couldn’t quite remember the guys name. Jerry, maybe? Regardless, after the man’s crushing defeat, a tall, curly haired woman walked over to the table, challenging Magnus to a round. She had a red plastic cup in her hand, probably full of some nondescript and cheap alcohol. She placed her drink off to the side, and readied her stance over her side of the triangle of cups. The game lasted about 30 minutes, probably because both parties were decently tipsy. After the game had ended, and the woman winning by two cups, both parties shook hands and introduced themselves. Barry was pretty sure Magnus completely stopped functioning for a few seconds when he heard the woman's name, and noticed the signature on the underside of her wrist.

With a gasp, he immediately let go of her hand and quickly, yet clumsily, slid his shirt over his shoulders and half turned his back to the very confused, yet amused woman in front of him. 

When she saw the name, she gave Magnus a wide, toothy smile that showed off her chipped tooth. Magnus immediately pulled her into a big hugged and picked her up slightly. From that night on, the two were intensely lovey-dovey with each other. Magnus would always have the pet name "Sunshine" for her, on account of her name's color, and Julia would jokingly call him her "Knight in Shining Armor" after he caught a ball that almost hit her during their trek across campus. Barry was very happy for his friend, finally meeting the love of his life. 

Right now though, Barry with frustrated and confused. it was the second semester of his sophomore year at The IPRE (Embarrassingly enough, he had heard Magnus refer to it as "The Institution of Pretty Rad Education" so many times, that he'd started to forget what it was actually named. In his defense though, his memory had never really been that great) and things were getting a bit... strange. Two people, elves, he overheard, had transferred to the college with full rides. That, in itself, wasn't what was weird though, in fact, it was more impressive than anything, and it was something he could admire. What was strange, however, were their names. Lup and Taako. Barry didn't know a lot about elves, as he'd never met one, the names could be normal, but the name Taako is what bothered him. After all, it was the one that had always been on his forearm.

It was there in dark red, and was typically the first thing people noticed about him whenever he introduced himself. He looked quite plain, brown hair, brown eyes, glasses, fair skin, the constant uniform of blue jeans and some random t-shirt he'd find. Magnus joked that "The gods made him with all middle sliders.". His soulmate mark wasn't plain though, as it even outshined the red college sweatshirt he'd wear whenever he had the sleeves pulled back. The name in itself was on the abnormal side as well. 

Barry was in a constant state of anxiety ever since Magnus and their other roommate, Merle Hi-Tower Highchurch, introduced him to Taako. Magnus knew about the name on Barry, and, while it wasn't his strong suit, managed to not mention anything about it. For that, Barry was thankful. Unfortunately though, is anxiety increased ten fold when he found out that Taako would be their fourth and final roommate. 

At this point, he was just confused. Sure, Taako was attractive, but Barry was pretty sure that was a universal elf thing. Barry wasn't romantically interested in dudes, so it made no sense for his soulmate to be one. It didn't help that their personalities didn't quite mesh well either. While Barry constantly had his nose in his notes and studied for whatever exam came up, Taako was, for the most part, nonchalant about everything. The most annoying thing about the situation though, was that Taako never really talked about his soulmate, nor did he show off the name like most people. Barry just need one tiny glimpse at the name so he could finally give himself the piece of mind to calm down and to stop having the soulmate problem constantly on the back burner of his mind. 

* * *

The door to his room swung open. "Foods done!" 

With a slight jump, Barry sighed and took his glasses off, wiping them with the underside of his hoodie. "Alright." He yelled back to the retreating figure. After he cleaned them, he put them back on his face and closed his laptop and textbook. 

It wasn't abnormal for Merle, or any of his roommates, to casually go into his room. It wasn't that weird for Magnus to, since they shared the same room and all that, but it was definitely still an invasion of privacy. 

"You _freeloaders_ are lucky I enjoy cooking, or you'd all starve!"

"But didn't you get here on a full ride?" 

By the time he got to the kitchen, Taako scoffed and hit Magnus, who was sneaking a couple french fries, with a wooden mixing spoon. 

The dorm was made for 4 people to comfortably live in. The deans clearly didn't expect about 6 to 12 people to attempt to cram inside one at a given time though. Barry was used to this. Today it look like there was Magnus, Merle, Taako, Dav, Julia, Lucretia, and that one young boy Taako tutored. Someone else was there too, and they looked almost exactly like Barry's hopefully not soulmate. 

"Can you give me hand here or something, Lup?" 

The woman, who Barry now knew as Lup, stood up from her seat next to Lucretia and took a few fries off the tray as well, slightly running her hand on it in the process. 

"Betrayal!" Taako yelled. "Treachery!" He looked over to Angus. 

"Perfidy?" He said, pulling his cup away from his mouth. Taako looked proud, but his face immediately dropped to a fake frown again when Merle swiped something from another food tray, causing Taako to complain loudly. 

Between sneaking in a small child and a few dogs on occasion, to the loud, mostly joking arguments that erupted, Barry didn't know how they hadn't been kicked out of the dorm yet. 

He took the other open seat next to Lucretia. The sleeves to her pastel blue cardigan were pushed up to her elbows. She was quickly typing on her phone with one of her hands and jotting down a few things on a sticky note with the other, her eyes darting back and fourth from each. The journalist major was probably messaging her boss.

"Oh, Barry, this is Lup! Taako's sister!" Magnus exclaimed, pointing a thumb to her. 

Lup was sitting against the counter (which her brother was scolding her for) but upon hearing her name, she looked at Barry and flicked her hand to him in a wave. Earlier when she snatched food from the still hot tray, he was concerned that she had burnt herself. When he looked at her hand, though, he notice old burns covering the palm of it. He was both concerned and intrigued. 

"Yo, Earth to Barold. You gonna stop staring at my sister or what?" 

Taako's voice brought him out of his thoughts and a soft pink blush began to dust his cheeks. He coughed and looked away, muttering a small 'nice to meet you.'

"We're hot, Taako. It's only natural people stare." Lup said with a wink. A few of the others laughed while Barry groaned. 

_'Great' _he thought. _'There's two of them'_


	2. Cool Family Bonding Activity: Not Getting Kicked Out From Our Living Space

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> had a 2-hour delay at my highschool, so ya girl pounded this out

Thankfully dinner didn’t go too badly. It was after everyone was done eating when shit actually hit the fan. Frankly, Barry was proud of everyone for lasting almost fifty minutes without loud yelling or dumb, good natured arguments. It started when Lucretia made a remark about her boss, or the general manager of the school’s newspaper. She said it while hiding her mischievous smile behind a fork with a few french fries on it. That was it. It wasn’t even what she said that made the dumb heated debate start. It was because she was eating frenchfries with a fork. That, in itself led to Taako’s comment of “at least she doesn’t put ketchup next to her fries and instead on them, you know, like an adult.”, which Magnus apparently took as a personal offense. Barry thought it was kind of ridiculous. 

Somewhere along the line though, the debate dissolved to the question ‘Do you put your ketchup in the fridge or pantry?’ 

Now that’s when Barry entered the conversation.

“What the actual fuck Merle?!” Taako exclaimed, putting a hand up to his own chest, bunching the fabric in front of his heart. “What even are you?”

“My teeth are sensitive, okay!” Merle argued back, crossing his right arm over his left, prosthetic one. 

“The act of leaving any condiment out of the refrigerator after you open it should be categorized as a hate crime, and you should be arrested for it.” It was obvious that Taako was dramatizing a tad bit, but the silly argument was an overall entertaining one. 

“While I think you’re being a bit showy, I think I’d have to agree with you, sir.” Angus said. Taako praised him and patted his messy curls which caused Angus to wrinkle his nose with a wide smile and rock slightly side to side in his seat. A giggle bubbled from his mouth too.

"What about syrup though?" Lup asked.

"I can't believe we share the same bloodline, you make me so mad." Taako replied, looking at his twin. 

Magnus jumped in. “Right though? That’s like saying you can just leave mustard out. Like, would you?”

Barry stifled a laugh. “Uh, yeah?”

“Wait, no, what?” Taako yelled loudly. 

Julia and Lup laughed as Merle shouted a ‘See? It’s perfectly normal.’ Lucretia covered her face with her two hands, her fork being held in three fingers.

“Don’t you dare leave the mustard out or I’ll put jelly in literally all of your shit. I just hope that my soulmate will have at least a bit of common sense to put things away properly.”

Barry’s breath hitched.

“I thought this was about ketchup?” Davenport chuckled.

“No, no, you made it about mustard. This is a mustard only convo now, assholes.”

Before anyone else could make any other ridiculous or outrageous comments, there was a set of three sharp knocks at the door. The nine of them shared glances at each other before Magnus got up and opened it with a cheery hello. Unsurprising to just about no one, it was Rosewell, one of the in-training campus police officers. 

“Hello, Magnus.” They said, sounding exhausted. “Why is it always this dorm?” 

“Hey Ros, Ros, be chill, for like, a fucking second. I need to tell half of the people here why their opinion is wrong, and why my opinion is right.”

Rosewell strained out a small laugh and shoveled a hand through their short hair. “You can do it, but quietly, please. You’re technically not even supposed to have this many people over this late on weekdays. I’ve told you before.”

When the last few words left their mouth, everyone in the small dorm, except Taako that is, looked at various devices for the time.

“Oh gosh, nine-thirty seven!” Angus said, worriedly while shutting his small flip phone. He had school tomorrow. He quickly stood up, taking his plate to the kitchen. He came back to put his shiny, fancy boy shoes on and reached for his hat. Taako cut off his action by grabbing it from the rack and holding it just out of Angus’ reach. 

“Kid, I kinda gotta walk you home. Pretty sure your gramps will be upset with me if you get kidnapped or lost or something,” He said. “Won’t pay me to tutor you anymore either.” He finished, throwing the hat at him.

It was obvious to literally everyone that Taako was walking him back because he cared for the kid.

“What about helping us clean up?” Lup said, already knowing he’d demand to get out of it. 

“Can’t hear you, gotta take the kid home.” He half-shouted, shuffling Angus past Rosewell. 

After hugs and goodbyes were exchanged between friends, Merle made his way to his and Taako's room, which made the main area was nearly empty. 

“Hey, I hope you know I’m not cleaning everything up by myself.” Lup teased, picking up a nearby tray. 

“Oh, no, I’ll- uh… I’ll help.” Barry pulled at his sleeves as Lup softly laughed. 

“You better, you’re the one that actually lives here.”

Lup and Barry both stood in the kitchen, washing dishes and cleaning up counters and the stove’s top. Or at least Lup was washing the dishes while Barry was cleaning up the other stuff. He made some dumb, poorly executed excuse about the soap irritating his hands. In reality, he’d rather die than show this attractive girl that her twin brother was probably his soulmate. Thankfully, she didn’t say anything about his blatant lie. 

Lup, after putting the last pan on the drying rack, turned to Barry. "You alright?” 

“Of course, what do mean?” He asked. It’s sweet that she was concerned considering they’d only known each other for a few hours. 

“Well...” She stretched out the ‘e’ “When Taako mentioned soulmates, you got all tense.” 

Barry suddenly found a spot on the counter that he became very intent on cleaning. 

Lup cocked her head to the side and came up beside him. She set her hand on his forearm and raised one of her eyebrows. The sudden contact caused him to noticely tense up. 

“I’m pretty sure if you keep scrubbing that spot, the counter won’t exist anymore.” she joked. 

A soft flush met Barry’s face once again. He averted his gaze to the hand on his arm. 

Taako’s voice broke the silence. “What are you two doing?” 

Barry jumped and stepped away, pulling his arm from Lup’s grasp. “N-nothing! We were just-” 

“Not each other, In case you were wondering,” Lup stated, cutting Barry off. “Or drugs. Or taxes.”

Her comment caused the brunet to suck in a sharp breath, making him cough. Taako snickered as Barry excused himself to get ready for bed. 

After he brushed his teeth and put on something more comfortable, he went into his and Magnus' room. He was thankful that he was the only one in there currently, as Magnus was taking Julia to her dorm. Barry figured he'd most likely stay the night over there. Regardless, Barry chucked himself into his twin sized bed and and threw the blankets over his body. In the other room, he could hear the twins talking and laughing. There was also the occasional clink of glasses that Barry figured was from wine glasses. At some point, he managed to slowly fell asleep.


	3. Learning Is Cool

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lup does some shit and thinks about some stuff ig

A sliver of a soft, yellow sun ray strung through a small opening in the light brown curtains, causing Lup to wake up. She’d normally consider the natural light nice, but at the moment, her headache was keeping her from thinking of it as anything but annoying. 

She rolled over on the couch before he hid her face in between two large cushions. Her hand reached for the throw blanket, but after deciding it was too far, she recoiled her arm and tucked it in between her chest and the cushions in front of her. Her light gray fabric shorts and burnt orange t-shirt from the night before didn’t do much to keep out the slight chill

Last night, Lup decided, was nice. Being around her friends that she hadn’t seen in a while was part of it, but she mainly liked her and Taako’s conversations that were accompanied with a few cheap bottles of  rosé. The only thing she didn’t find enjoyable was having to wash dishes. She never did like the feeling of having to scoop out the leftover food mush from the sink’s stopper afterwards. The only reason she didn’t pitch a fit about it was because the guy, Barry, she remembered, wasn’t too keen on pushing his sleeves up. 

Lup realized, during dinner, that Barry had a certain reluctance whenever the word ‘soulmate’ came up in conversation, and the more she thought about it, the worse she felt. 

Her and Taako’s aunt was always like that after her soulmate passed. Very finicky about the subject and always covered the darkened mark. It was probably the same with Barry. 

She sat up with a groan and rubbed her squinted eyes.

She couldn’t blame him for not wanting anyone to look at it and, in all honesty, the whole soulmate thing made her a tad bit strung out too. She looked down at her scarred palms and traced the layers of burns with her calloused pointer finger. She could sort of remember the small, blue writing that sat crooked across the palm ‘Slider’ or something like that. It worried her that she couldn’t see the mark anymore. It could darken at any point. Hell, it could already have darkened without her knowledge. 

Thinking about that, she decided, was tragic bullshit. She didn’t have time for it. Instead, she looked up at the wall clock and decided that she only had about fifteen minutes to get to her class.  Weather it was her Quantum Mechanics class or her Statistical Mechanics class, she couldn’t remember, so she crept into Taako and Merle’s room, swiped both overpriced textbooks, each corresponding composition notebook, and some pencils. After shoveling them in a bag, she made her way to the bathroom to get freshened up before styling her hair. She noticed a red hoodie was laying on the back of a chair and slipped it on, uncaring of whos it was. Afterwords, she grabbed the bag and made her way out to make the trek across campus.

Since it was still sort of early (almost 9 in the morning) there was still a light spray of dew over the grass and when she cut through a mulch covered flowerbed, a few leaves brushed her ankles, making the elastic of her socks wet.

She got to the door of the lecture hall and pulled it open, entering the already air conditioned room. 

As it would turn out, the gods above decided to punish her for walking in the mulch, and it ended up being neither mechanics class. Instead, it was Calculus II. Suffice to say, wasn’t thrilled at the aspect of going in almost completely unprepared. 

Her eyes swept through the lecture hall. The class wasn’t super full, as Lup purposely chose the classes with the least amount of attendees (which happened to be mainly early morning or late night classes) so she could focus on her studies. The only problem though, was that today she was going to have to try to let someone share their textbook with her. 

Her eyes landed on a blond guy with thick rimmed square glasses who was sitting front and center. 

_ Target Acquired.  _

She overhead slammed her bag down on the desk next to him making everyone in her general vicinity jump with surprise. 

“Hey there, Nerd Alert.” Lup said, sliding into the chair.

“Uh, hey.” He said, nervously. He adjusted his jacket’s collar. “You’re Taako’s sister?”

Lup had never actually met the dude before, although she knew his name started with an ‘L’. She’d only knew about him because of a small fiasco in which Taako, Magnus, and Merle had broken into the school’s library to get something the dude messed up and was too afraid to fix himself. They were lucky that it was Lucretia who had caught them and not the campus police. 

She’d have to ask for the story again later.

“Sure am, so anyway, I’m gonna make this short. I brought the wrong textbooks with me. Mind sharing for a bit?”

It was very obvious that he was intimidated by her and she used that to her advantage.

“Sure…” he trailed off. 

—  ✧  — 

After an hour and fifteen minutes of listening to the professor drone on, she exited the building and made her way across the freshly mowed grass.

She noticed that they were now in the one season where the mornings were a bit frigid, but any time past 10 was almost smoldering. The realization made her put the hoodie in the bag too.

Then is started to lightly sprinkle. She watched with amusement as the majority of the people who were sitting in or walking through the quad sprinted to the nearest door, the majority were sheltering thick textbooks from the drizzle. 

Lup personally didn’t see what the big deal was. Sure, the rain (if you could even call it that) was kind of annoying when you didn’t plan for it, but seeing people pretend like it was fist sized hail was ridiculous. The temperature was already warm, so the worst thing the rain did was make the air feel muggy.

She decided it was time for some brunch, and walked to the cafeteria with her bag chucked over her shoulder. Her elbow was in the air, and she was aware that she probably looked ridiculous. At the very least, she still looked good, even if she was in the same clothes from yesterday. 

She pulled out her meal plan card from her wallet while she walked in. The room was filled with people who looked dead on the inside and the scent of coffee wafted through the entire area. Following the smell of caffeine, she went into the line and picked up a few things. After she swiped her card, she sat at an empty table near a wall. Her eyes lazily followed random people as they walked sat around, talking to each other and eating. 

The small circle at the top right of her phone briefly blinked green, signaling that she received a text. It was just Taako bitching about the rain. A grin swept across her face as she sent him a message back, teasing him about how he was ‘so similar to a cat’. 

An exhausted Lucretia entered the cafeteria and made a beeline for the coffee machine. Lup watched in amusement when, almost as soon as she had gotten it, she chugged about half of it. She waved the ebony skinned woman over. 

“You good?”

Lucretia let out a deep sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose. “The library is awful.” 

Lup laughed. “It can’t be  _ that _ bad, Lucy.”

She shook her head and tucked a loose strand of curly hair behind her ear and under the tip of her glasses, keeping it secure. 

“It is. I don’t know why, but it is.”

“Need me to keep you company?”

Lucretia thought for a moment while taking another drink. “I think I’m alright. I wouldn’t be opposed if you popped in at some point though.”

Lup nodded back. “Alright.”

She noticed that her own drink was getting cold and burned a cantrip by producing a small flame that danced at the edge of her pointer finger. She held it about an inch above the cup. 

“I should get going. I said I’d only be gone for a moment. Don’t burn down the room please.”

“You can’t tell me what to do.” 

Lucretia, with a smile, rolled her eyes and left.

She followed her friend’s move and got up as well, leaving the room and back outside. She figured it was time to head “home” to the dorm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am a Lucas Miller apologist.   
I feel as if that needed to be said


End file.
